Black locust stand structure on the sterile dump in the middle basin of Jiu River (Romania)

Introduced in 1750 as an ornamental tree and then in 1852 as a forest tree species, black locust occupied nowadays 250,000 ha in Romania. The tree species is important for its wood (lumber, poles, firewood, etc.), its honey-related production as well as its environmental role (afforestation of sand dunes and sterile dumps). One of the most important activities in the middle basin of Jiu River is coal mining. After 1956 this activity has developed very quickly and two power plants were built in Rovinari and Turceni. As a result, sterile dumps and coal ash dumps have established so it was necessary to restore the area by afforestation. This activity started with the sterile dump Viaduct Rovinari, using Austrian pine and black locust, and continued with others such as Cocoreni and Moi. The most used tree species for ecological restoration was black locust. In order to express the stand structure, diameter at breast height (DBH), total height (H) and crown diameter were measured. The soil analysis were performed and showed differences in the content of heavy metals and radionuclides for both location. The study revealed positive correlations between DBH and H, a stronger one for Moi plantation. Our research highlights the capacity of black locust to establish and grow under very difficult site conditions

Micro-Raman—a tool for the heavy mineral analysis of gold placer-type deposits (Pianu Valley, Romania)

In the current study, different heavy minerals typical of gold placer deposits were identified by means of micro-Raman spectroscopy, and their chemical composition analyzed and discussed (garnet, kyanite, staurolite, zircon, allanite, monazite, xenotime, rutile, anatase, cassiterite, titanite, barite). Even complex solid solution series, such as those of garnets, can be deciphered with the aid of systematic trends observed in Raman line frequencies. The vi mode in garnets will shift from high to low frequencies as a function of the ionic radius of the X2+ cation, from Mg2+, to Fe2+ and Mn2+, while the presence of Ca2+ will make the band to be shifted strongly to even lower wavenumbers. This approach has successfully been taken to differentiate between polymorph triplets such as kyanite-sillimanite-andalusite and rutile-anatase-brookite. Minerals under consideration with high contents of REE, U and Th are affected by intensive metamictization, particularly zircon and titanite. Raman peak features, such as shape, symmetry and intensity, respond to this radiation damage of the lattice and enable fine-tuning of these heavy minerals, such as in the case of fluorite (fetid fluorite). © 2020, MDPI AG. All rights reserved

A Natural GMS Laboratory (Granulometry-Morphometry-Situmetry): Geomorphological-Sedimentological-Mineralogical Terrain Analysis Linked to Coarse-Grained Siliciclastic Sediments at the Basement-Foreland Boundary (SE Germany)

The “natural GMS laboratory” (granulometry-morphometry-situmetry) is located within the Variscan Basement in SE Germany (Fichtelgebirge Mts.), which is uplifted relative to its Permo-Mesozoic foreland along a deep-seated lineamentary fault zone. This transitional study area is crossed by straight to low drainage systems in the basement, turning meandering channel systems into high sinuosity when entering the foreland. Due to its good geological coverage, the entire region is subjected to an advanced-level terrain analysis and completed with a sedimentological study focusing on the GMS tool. Unlike many applications in the past, the three components of the GMS tool that are of almost equal value ought to be used in combination and not as stand-alone procedures so as to be integrated into other near-surface geoscientific methods, e.g., sediment petrography. The strong points of granulometry of coarse-grained/gravel-sized sediments are its extension into the smaller sand and clay grain size intervals using the sorting, mean and/or median values for an environmental analysis. Morphometry can be linked to the compositional geosciences, e.g., mineralogy and geochemistry. The grain shape is intimately connected with the lithology, providing options from triaxial measuring of the lithoclast to the digital image analysis. It is a favorable tool to supplement the provenance of lithoclasts. Situmetry is the key element of hydrodynamic research and directly builds upon its sister methods. Its applications and numerical approaches are useful for the identification and quantification of physical land-forming processes. It is the fan sharpness and the orientation of lithoclasts relative to the direction of the talweg and in relation cross-sectional valley features that integrate the GMS tool into geological and geomorphological mapping, both of which result in a digital terrain model. Horizontal rose diagrams are useful for the upper reaches of drainage systems, be they of alluvial or non-alluvial types, and vertical ones for alluvial channels in the distal and proximal foreland where stacked patterns of depositional terraces are of widespread occurrence. In general, the GMS tool can be applied to sedimentological, geomorphological, petrographic and tectonic objects in basements and foreland basins; in applied geosciences, it is suitable for the identification of mineral resources and of areas vulnerable to geohazards, and in genetic geosciences for the discrimination of supergene chemical and physical depositional and land-forming processes

ENTOMOPHAGA MAIMAIGA IN ROMANIA AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES IN BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF LYMANTRIA DISPAR POPULATIONS

Once the pathogen Entomophaga maimaiga was introduced in Bulgaria (1999), they were reported Lymantria dispar larvae high mortality in Romania during 2004-2006 outbreak which developed in wet mixed forests of oak (Q. petraea) and beech (F. sylvatica)in the South-West of the country in Baile Herculane, Orsova and Modova Noua Forest Districts. Larvae mortality were reported at the beginning of the 2013-2015 Lymantria dispar outbreak in several Turkey oak (Q.cerris)and Hungaryan oak (Q. frainetto) forests in Southern Romania (Ghimpati, Slavesti, Costesti)and in the years 2013 and 2014, the pathogen acted over a large area,causing significant mortality. The first field and laboratory experiments regarding the possibilities of biological control of Lymantria dispar populations using Entomophaga maimaiga were installed in 2014.Using cadavers of Lymantria dispar larvae with symptoms ofthe disease caused by Entomophaga maimaiga collected from forests in Costesti area,various experiments were installed in the field, pursuing the possibility of spreading and establishing the pathogen. There have been used a design with two influencing factors:A - the form of the dispersed material (powder -suspension);B – forest soil moisture (wet - dry). The spores were dispersed in the form of powder resulted from the grinding of dead larvae, and also in the form of water suspension, in wet soil and dry soil conditions.In the laboratory, experiments were performed on the persistence of spores in the soil and also in artificial growth on culture media of spores preserved in laboratory conditions. The results of the experiments are presented in the paper

EVOLUTION OF INFESTATIONS WITH LOOPERMOTH (GEOMETRIDAE) IN OAK FORESTS FROM ROMANIA

In the oak forests from Romania, the species of Geometridae develops regular outbreaks with decennal frequencies. This paper presents a historic of infestations on last 52 years (1960-2012) and analyzes the evolution trend of loopermoth populations in the last outbreak in Romania (2007-2010), depending by site conditions and forest stand characteristics. The mixed forests with common oak (Quercus robur) and sessile oak (Quercus petrea) as dominant species, placed on elevated plain, or on upper sides of the southern slopes, with ages over 80 years, shown favorable for developing ample outbreaks, with exponential growth rate of loopermoth populations

The Hubbard model within the equations of motion approach

The Hubbard model has a special role in Condensed Matter Theory as it is considered as the simplest Hamiltonian model one can write in order to describe anomalous physical properties of some class of real materials. Unfortunately, this model is not exactly solved except for some limits and therefore one should resort to analytical methods, like the Equations of Motion Approach, or to numerical techniques in order to attain a description of its relevant features in the whole range of physical parameters (interaction, filling and temperature). In this manuscript, the Composite Operator Method, which exploits the above mentioned analytical technique, is presented and systematically applied in order to get information about the behavior of all relevant properties of the model (local, thermodynamic, single- and two- particle ones) in comparison with many other analytical techniques, the above cited known limits and numerical simulations. Within this approach, the Hubbard model is shown to be also capable to describe some anomalous behaviors of the cuprate superconductors.Comment: 232 pages, more than 300 figures, more than 500 reference

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Measurement of χ c1 and χ c2 production with s√ = 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

The prompt and non-prompt production cross-sections for the χ c1 and χ c2 charmonium states are measured in pp collisions at s√ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using 4.5 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. The χ c states are reconstructed through the radiative decay χ c → J/ψγ (with J/ψ → μ + μ −) where photons are reconstructed from γ → e + e − conversions. The production rate of the χ c2 state relative to the χ c1 state is measured for prompt and non-prompt χ c as a function of J/ψ transverse momentum. The prompt χ c cross-sections are combined with existing measurements of prompt J/ψ production to derive the fraction of prompt J/ψ produced in feed-down from χ c decays. The fractions of χ c1 and χ c2 produced in b-hadron decays are also measured

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections for Higgs boson production in the diphoton decay channel at s√=8 TeV with ATLAS

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections are presented for Higgs boson production in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s√=8 TeV. The analysis is performed in the H → γγ decay channel using 20.3 fb−1 of data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The signal is extracted using a fit to the diphoton invariant mass spectrum assuming that the width of the resonance is much smaller than the experimental resolution. The signal yields are corrected for the effects of detector inefficiency and resolution. The pp → H → γγ fiducial cross section is measured to be 43.2 ±9.4(stat.) − 2.9 + 3.2 (syst.) ±1.2(lumi)fb for a Higgs boson of mass 125.4GeV decaying to two isolated photons that have transverse momentum greater than 35% and 25% of the diphoton invariant mass and each with absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.37. Four additional fiducial cross sections and two cross-section limits are presented in phase space regions that test the theoretical modelling of different Higgs boson production mechanisms, or are sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model. Differential cross sections are also presented, as a function of variables related to the diphoton kinematics and the jet activity produced in the Higgs boson events. The observed spectra are statistically limited but broadly in line with the theoretical expectations